


Coming Out of the Dutch Linen Press

by Bakcheia



Category: J'en suis! (1997)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakcheia/pseuds/Bakcheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pierre is in the closet. The worst of it is, it's not even his closet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Out of the Dutch Linen Press

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annakas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annakas/gifts).



> Dear Recipient, I'm so glad your prompt was what it was because I honestly think I'd have cried if I saw a gen request for this movie.

Pierre was stuck in the closet.

This wasn't exactly a new position for him, he had been for over ten years now, ever since he'd joined the wrestling society at university and been introduced to his sparring partner; a man a two years younger than himself with long hair and longer eyelashes and the kind of body that resulted in medical students following him around clutching pencils and claiming they needed to practice their anatomy sketches.

Under normal circumstances the last thing being introduced to a beautiful young man would have resulted in was Pierre hiding his bisexuality, as nothing puts a crimp on getting into someone's pants like pretending you don't want to.

This however, had been a strange and complex situation.

Pierre wasn't the shy type - typically his method consisted of approaching the object of his desire with a winning smile and the promise of whatever they wanted for breakfast in the morning – but he knew that there was a time and a place to mention your raging lust and that is most emphatically not when you're pinning your potential lover to the ground with one arm and forcing their thighs apart with the other. Nor is it in the shower afterwards, with the water streaming over their sleekly muscled shoulders and parting into twin streams around the tempting jut of their hips, with all the unselfconsciousness of someone who assumes you have no reason to be looking.

Unfortunately, when you spend upwards of four hours a week platonically shoving your head into someone's crotch and then going into a room to take off all your clothes together, an unmentioned attraction starts to seem less like a social nicety and more like a gross betrayal of trust. How do you confess your feelings to someone you had in a keyed legspread not half an hour ago - ' _Hey, you seem really cool and I'd like to get to know you better, maybe over dinner. This is in no way related to my prying your legs apart earlier'?_

Or how about ' _By the way I really fancy you and I promise I've not spent the past three weeks creeping on you in the showers.'?_

Eventually Pierre had just had to accept that he lacked the social wizardry to navigate such dangerous waters and had settled down into being Dominique's friend, which wasn't exactly a hardship, as Dominique was smart and funny and a fountain of ingenuity when it came to avenging a stolen lunch.

 _It_ _isn't perfect_ , Pierre had decided, _but it's enough_.

 

So really, he should have been used to it by now. Of course, usually the closet in question was a little more metaphorical and a little less solid oak. This closet also had a thin, sharp shelf jutting into the place his arm wanted to be and nothing like the room he needed to do anything convenient with his legs. Most significantly, Dominique was trapped in there with him and if the expression on his face was anything to go by, blaming him for the whole thing.

Admittedly, Pierre had been the one who'd pulled him in there and clamped a hand over his mouth when he tried to protest. Judging from the glare he'd gotten when he'd closed the door and heard the lock snap into place with a nasty little clicking sound, it seemed likely the words he'd muffled beneath his palm had been something along the lines of 'don't shut the door, these things lock automatically' as opposed to the random griping he thought he'd been stifling.

So, in a way, it _was_ Pierre's fault that they were trapped in a wardrobe in the spare room of a complete stranger but they wouldn't have been there in the first place if it wasn't for Etienne and his relationship issues.

 

Dominique had explained the situation to Pierre over dinner yesterday, wisely waiting until they were most of the way through a bottle of red wine to do so.

The gist of it was that one of Victor's friends had inherited what was purported to be a particularly fine set of bedroom furniture and (not being particularly enthused at the prospect of spending his nights in the bed his grandmother had died in), was willing to sell at a very reasonable price. As Victor's boyfriend, Etienne was to be given first dibs, an offer he would have been a lot more eager to take up if the articles in question had been evaluated by someone other than Victor, who couldn't reliably tell whether an antique was the right way up, let alone from the right century. Naturally, he wanted a second opinion before he sank $90,000 on what might turn out to be no more than a re-stained IKEA bedroom set. Naturally, he also wanted this second opinion to happen on the quiet, so Victor wouldn't know his skills had been slighted.

“And that,” Dominique had finished, topping up Pierre's wineglass with a solicitousness that should have made him suspicious “is why Etienne wants me to break into Victor's friend's house and secretly evaluate his furniture.”

Pierre had stared at him and then at his refilled glass, wondering whether he'd had far too much, or not enough. Dominique had inched the glass over towards him invitingly and when Pierre had picked it up their fingertips had touched for a moment.

Then he'd left his hand where it was, on Pierre's side of the table.

It was probably habit, Pierre thought, after all those working lunches where they'd had to coo over the breadsticks at each other so as too soothe the suspicions of Dominique's current client. If they had been eating with Etienne, or Victor, that would have been his cue to reach over and clasp the waiting fingers in his own. It had made his free hand twitch reflexively in his lap.

 

“Did you ever hear that urban myth about the bride who played hide and seek on her wedding day?” The question, asked in a tone of exaggerated casualness – at least, as much of a tone as could be achieved in a soft whisper – broke into Pierre's musings. He'd been expecting some kind of recrimination and he didn't like where this story might be going.

“No...” he said at last, cautiously, not wanting to piss his friend off further but not wanting to walk into an obvious verbal trap either.

“Well, while all the other guests ran off to hide in sensible places, such as _under the bed_ or _behind the curtains –_ both features of this room by the way - she went and hid in a chest and it locked behind her. She called and called but nobody heard her and it wasn't until years later that they opened the chest and she was found” and Dominique paused for spiteful, dramatic effect. “They could only recognise her because of the embroidery in the veil she was wearing.”

“Dominique...” Pierre began, wearily.

“She'd tried so hard to claw her way out that even the bones of her fingers were worn down.”

“ _Dominique..._ ”

“If you're wondering why I'm bringing this up, I suppose I'm just trying to find the words to thank you for letting me experience this first hand.”

 It was one thing to look like he was blaming Pierre for their situation and quite another to say it out loud. Pierre didn't even have to be here, in this horrible house full of horrible furniture, apparently all of which needed to be examined in minute and monotonous detail by torchlight. He could be at home now, drinking wine and reading a good book and generally revelling in being the kind of person who lets their best friend get into awful situations by themselves. 

Also, when he climbed in the wardrobe he'd trodden on something crunchy and furry, which at first he'd taken to be a mink stole but was now coming to the creeping realisation might have been a dead cat. Whatever it was, he was sitting on it now, which is not something that would be happening to him if it hadn't been for Dominique practically begging for him to go along and insisting that nothing could go wrong.

“ _It'll be easy”_ he'd said, _“I have a key”_ he'd said. _“Nothing can go wrong”_ he'd said.

None of which had convinced Pierre but then Dominique had given him a soft, silvery eyed look through his lashes and he'd found himself reaching for his wine glass with the strained expression of a man who senses an uncomfortable amount of shenanigans in his future. He'd never been particularly good at resisting his friend and had only gotten worse since their financial security had become dependent upon them spending half their time pretending to be passionately in love with each other.

The new outfits hadn't exactly hurt, either. If there's one thing Pierre's life could have done without it was for his married crush to take a crash course in How To Make Yourself Attractive To Other Men. Dominique had turned up to the restaurant yesterday dressed in a tailored suit, with a silver-green tie to match his silver-green eyes; a fact Pierre liked to think was unrelated to him agreeing to break into the house of a complete stranger.

 

“I'm sorry I got us into this situation” he said, putting as much emphasis as he could on the 'us'. “I suppose I panicked when I heard the person you promised wouldn't be home coming up the stairs.”

Dominique curled his lip at him in a half-hearted little snarl. The owner of the house – Pierre didn't even know his name – was supposed to be joining a glad throng at Victor's flat but something had clearly gone wrong as he'd stormed off to be a glad throng all by himself in the room above. They could hear him now, snoring the arrhythmic snores of the truly blathered.

Pierre reached out and took Dominique's hand between both of his, stroking the clenched fist as one might a frightened kitten.

“Poor little dove, if only you hadn't been too scared to go alone,” he trilled nastily, “I wouldn't have been here to get you into this mess.”

Dominique snatched his hand back, scowling.

“Don't call me that” he hissed, wiping his hand on his shirt as if the faux affection had left an oily residue behind.

“I'm sorry, _sweetheart_ ” said Pierre, with the least sorry face anyone has ever worn, reaching out with a provoking hand to pat him on the head, or maybe chuck him under the chin. Dominique was having none of it. It was a joke, the absurd, demeaning names and little touches and sometimes it was a joke with him but now it was a joke at him and Dominique was not in the mood to be joked at. He pushed the hand away, roughly.

There was a pause and then a brief, furious and strangely silent tangling of limbs that most people would have called wrestling but which bore no resemblance to the calm, controlled practice either of them would have associated with the word. They detached after a few seconds, feeling hot and ridiculous; Pierre straightened his glasses (which had somehow ended up under his nose) and Dominique pulled down the hem of his shirt from where it clung tenaciously at about nipple height.

 

There was a slender scar on Dominique's belly, still there after eight years, which he'd gotten after falling from a roof onto a spiked iron fence. He'd been even more reckless in those days, shimmying up a drainpipe to get a closer look at some fancy cornicing, despite Pierre telling him that he would slip and fall and get turned into an unpleasant paste, that he, Pierre, would have to rinse out of the gravel.

“I didn't land on the _gravel_ though, so you were wrong.” Dominique had insisted as he prodded gingerly at the resulting gash in his side, in a manner so insufferable that Pierre might have hit him if he hadn't been so busy calling an ambulance and then blagging his way into it on the basis that he needed to go the hospital too, so that there would be someone competent to deal with all the heart attacks that he, Pierre, was undoubtedly about to have.

In the ambulance, he'd held Dominique's hand, feeling the blood ooze between their joined fingers and planting little kisses on any patch of skin he could reach (his shoulder, his cheek and the inside of his wrist, where the veins showed blue through the skin) simpering and crooning and exhorting his 'little dove' to be brave until Dominique was laughing so hard that the paramedic got cross and told him to stop.

 

The biggest joke of all, of course, was that in a way, Pierre was serious about all of it.

 

 _I'm in two closets,_ Pierre thought, _I'm in two closets at the same time and both because of this bastard._

They were supposed to be meeting Etienne for lunch tomorrow to tell him how it went, if they ever got out of the less metaphorical of the closets, that is.

Maybe Dominique would kiss him on the cheek and straighten his tie in a convincing display of heartfelt affection.

Or maybe Pierre would feed Dominique some small something whilst Etienne looked on with paternalistic pleasure.

Or maybe Pierre would club himself to death with one of the shoes that was currently digging him in the back and he'd never again have to publicly pretend to be feeling what he felt every day in the privacy of his own heart.

Suddenly, he came to a decision. It wasn't a very good decision but given that he was currently trapped in two closets at once, there was probably a limit to how far the situation could deteriorate. Looking at it that way, Pierre could almost convince himself that he wasn't about to do something very silly.

He sneaked a glance to his left. Some people, if made angry, stayed that way for days but Dominique's current record was somewhere in the region of half a minute and true to form he'd left anger behind and returned to his more natural state of poorly concealed anxiety. It wasn't Pierre's first choice of emotion but he'd take what he could get. He tapped Dominique on the shoulder and got a suspicious look in return.

"While we're here, not doing anything in particular, there's something I think you should know." He paused a moment to gather his thoughts, which turned out to be a mistake as Dominique must have been starting to feel bad about his part in the affair and therefore decided to help.

"If you're trying to tell me it was you who broke my mother's Delft vase, I already knew that. I found the pieces in your coat pocket."

"No, it's not that, it's-"

"She knows it was you as well, by the way. She-" He stopped because Pierre had just put his hand over his mouth. Dominique was capable of talking about his mother for a long time. 

“I'm bisexual. I've always been bisexual. I fucked a lot of men before I met you and even more after. I just never told you about it before because I thought it would be weird.”

It was the sort of declaration that should have been presented in loud, ringing tones but given the circumstances Pierre had to settle for delivering it in a barely audible whisper. Dominique blinked at him. Pierre removed his hand but it was as if the act had pressed some sort of mute button because he just opened and closed his mouth silently as though he'd forgotten how to talk.

“I don't understand” he said, finally.

That seemed reasonable. Pierre didn't understand it himself, exactly.

“We've known each other for almost fifteen years." It could have been an accusation, but it wasn't. Dominique just sounded lost. He looked lost too, gazing down at the floor of the closet as if he might find some kind of explanation carved into the wood.

"I don't understand why you've kept this a secret for _fifteen years_ because you thought telling me would be too weird-”

Pierre took a deep breath, although whether he was planning to defend his reasons for secrecy, his past sexual history or the bisexuality itself, even he wasn't quite sure. They all sounded like they'd need a lot of air, either way.

“-whereas now, as we sit inside this Dutch linen press, it isn't weird at all?”

It was Pierre's turn to blink.

“This is a Dutch linen press?”

“I think so, I didn't get a good look at it from the outside. _”_

Well, that didn't have quite the same symbolism as a closet but Pierre couldn't exactly suck his secrets back in because the furniture was narratively inconvenient.

He'd been planning to smoothly combine the revelation of his liking men with the revelation of him liking Dominique in particular but now that the moment had come he'd rather lost the required momentum. Dominique sat silently next to him, probably waiting for him to explain why he'd never told him this before. Or why he was telling him this now. Or maybe he just really wanted to tell Pierre all about the common identifiers of the Dutch linen press and leave this awkwardness behind forevermore.

Pierre could hardly blame him if it was the latter.

He'd bring it up again tomorrow, he decided, or the next day. Within the next decade at least. Somewhere they could get away from each other afterwards, if they had to and could talk in something above a whisper. Linen presses lacked space as well as symbolism; it would have been difficult for them to not touch and at the moment neither of them were trying.

Maybe, if Dominique knew, he'd start.

Pierre sighed deeply, and even that little movement made their shoulders rub, for a moment.

 

Except it didn't look like Dominique was going to leave things where they were. Even in the low light available Pierre could see that he wore an inward, considering look. The sort of look someone might wear if they were mentally running over ten years of showers and kisses and friendly-arms-over-the-shoulder and coming to certain unpleasant conclusions. Conclusions like _'that would explain why he didn't want me to quit wrestling'_ and ' _this must be why he suggested going into partnership'._

  _Any moment now_ , Pierre thought, _he's going to ask me if I fancy him, as if fifteen years of friendship has all been one long dance to get into his trousers._

As if it was their friendship that had been the pretence and not their “relationship”.

“Pierre...” Dominique started right on cue “do you...are you...”

It didn't look like he was going to finish the sentence but then he didn't have to. _Do you think I'm hot? Are you in love with me?_

Whichever he was trying to ask, the answer was the same and Pierre would have loved to be able to tell him that no, he wasn't interested in him, that just because he liked men didn't mean that he liked all men and that Dominique should get over himself, he wasn't that good looking. Except he _was_ , damn him and Pierre had spent the last ten years of his life trying to transfer his affections to a series of inferior substitutes to no avail.

“Well, yes” he said, crossly, “I am. Or I do. But I _might not have_.”

There was a pause, which could have meant a lot of things, including that Dominique had no idea how to parse what he had just said.

“I was going,” Dominique said, eventually, “to ask if not telling me this sooner meant that you didn't trust me. If you were afraid of what I'd do when I found out.”

_Do you think I can't be trusted? Are you afraid of me?_

“Ah.”

“But I think the question you just answered was 'have you been having erotic thoughts about me since we met?'”

There weren't many advantages to being locked in what amounted to a small wooden box with someone you'd just accidentally confessed undying lust to but if there was one, it was that it was too dark for said person to see that you were shrivelling up with embarrassment.

“I may have had some fantasies,” he admitted, slowly, “granted, the most recent one has been about horribly murdering you and hiding your body down a well”

In most of those fantasies – not the murder one, obviously - this would be the moment where Dominique gave a glad cry and started unbuttoning his trousers, which didn't seem to be going to happen but at least he wasn't screaming or trying to escape through a chink in the woodwork, so that was something.

It occurred to Pierre that he wasn't surprised. A man who ran shrieking from a declaration of lust would not have stood being called “little turtledove” while another man climbed into his lap and kissed him smack on the lips. He wouldn't have kissed back, either. Which was interesting when you thought about it because Dominque would submit to Victor's pettings and proddings with the belligerent patience of a dog having it's ears pulled by a baby but when it was Pierre and they were alone...

Huh.

Something else had occurred to Pierre.

“You don't seem very bothered by any of this” he observed, casually. This was not strictly true because Dominique had that strained air he got whenever he was repressing an emotion he considered emasculating but he wasn't angry or disgusted, or any of the things Pierre had feared he might be.

“A lot of men would have been.” He went on, looking for some spark of comprehension in his friend's eyes and wishing he could see his face better. “Most _straight_ men don't want to hear that from the guy they shower with.”

“But we're friends.”

Which was an endearing sentiment and Pierre was sure he'd appreciate it later when he'd finished banging his head against the wall in frustration.

“Yes,” he said, “we are, but are you sure there's not _some other reason_?” and he waggled his fingers in a gesture that was somehow meant to represent levels one to six on the Kinsey scale.

Understanding dawned.

“Pierre, are you trying to have a conversation about my potentially repressed sexuality while I'm literally trapped inside a closet?”

“It's not a closet, it's a Dutch linen press. You said so yourself.”

Dominique stared at him for a moment, to see if he was serious, then dropped his head into his hands with a soft groan.

The moment stretched out.

 _Come on._ Pierre found himself thinking. _Be gay. Be just a little bit gay. Be gay enough._

“No. I'm not.”

Well. That sounded pretty final. Pierre scrabbled for something to temper the sudden, crushing sense of loss.

Dominique knew Pierre wanted him and he didn't mind. Their shoulders still rubbed comfortably together in the cramped space and they were still going to be friends - _which was the most important thing_ , he reminded himself a little desperately. After all, that's what he'd been afraid of losing all this time and not the possibility of something more.

As he'd decided all those years ago, it wasn't perfect but it was enough.

It was good really, to have the love of his life confirm his absolute, irrevocable disinterest in him. Pierre was _glad_. This was _good_ news. Maybe now he could finally move on with his life and form some kind of satisfying long term relationship with a nice-

“At least, I don't think so?”

Pierre decided that regardless of whether what he was sitting on was a mink stole, or the desiccated corpse of a cat, Dominique was getting swatted in the face with it.

“How many men do you have to be attracted to before it counts?” Dominique chewed on a manicured thumbnail absent mindedly, then glanced up at Pierre as if he expected him to volunteer an opinion. Pierre had nothing.

“I think it should be at least three” he continued “one or two would just be exceptions.”

“I'm not sure that's how it works” Pierre murmured, helplessly, “does that mean you've been attracted to at least one?”

“You think one counts?”

“I don't care if it counts!” Pierre realised he was shouting and made an almost superhuman effort to lower his voice “I care if it's me!”

The faint background snores from above continued undisturbed and Dominique let out a breath of relief. Pierre didn't.

He had often suspected that bubbling beneath Dominique's showy masculinity there might be a certain sexual flexibility but whether it had been persuaded to flex in his direction was another matter altogether. He'd never had cause to doubt his own allure before – he was witty, successful, good at sports and even if he wasn't what a lot of people would call handsome, they were hardly shying away from him with blood trickling from their eyes and bile welling in their throats.

Only Dominique possessed such a striking personal beauty that whenever he stopped moving for a second he ended up looking like the subject of an oddly prosaic classical painting. He was doing it now – Hylas Nervous Amongst Shelves– and wouldn't it be terrible if Dominique rejected him not because he didn't like men but because he didn't like Pierre.

_Just because he likes men doesn't mean that he likes all men and I should get over myself, I'm not that good looking._

That wasn't fair. Words shouldn't come back to haunt you if you hadn't actually said them.

“Well, obviously it's you,” Dominique said, as if it was absurd of Pierre to ask at all. “Who else was it going to be?”

What do you say when the most beautiful man you've ever seen tells you he finds you attractive? 'Thank you' _?_

Or maybe, 'are you _sure_ ' _?_

Instead Pierre said “Can I kiss you?”

It was too dark to see if Dominique was blushing but Pierre thought he could see the shape of the blush in the embarrassed line of his shoulders and in the way he angled his head, so that a fall of hair would hide the colour that was already concealed in shadow. His hair had been longer, once and he'd never quite lost the habit.

“You don't usually ask”

“I'm asking now.”

Dominique stared at him, with the same blunt, assessing look that he used when he was trying to determine if an antique was genuine or not. Pierre was half expecting him to take out a tape measure and check him for grain shrinkage but instead he leaned forward, put one had firmly on his shoulder and the other, more tentatively, on his hip and kissed him.

It wasn't the best kiss Pierre had ever had but it came surprisingly close, which really went to show you it was the person that was important and not the place, because there was little that was less conducive to a romantic tryst than having to brace one foot against what may or may not have been a dead cat.

It was certainly good enough for Pierre to want to give it another go, so he did.

“We can't do this _here_ ” Dominique protested, albeit whilst sliding his hands under Pierre's shirt and up the long muscles of his back in a manner which wasn't what you could call discouraging. Pierre, who was frankly delighted to be doing it anywhere, wasn't about to be put off by such trifling inconveniences as being inside somebody else's linen press – not even when the somebody else was snoring loudly a few metres away.

“We _could_ ,” he said enticingly, “if you'd take those coats of the hook and move the tie rack a little to the left.”

Dominique paused - Eros Considering the Merits of Shagging in a Linen Press - and it wasn't so dark that Pierre couldn't see the sculpted lines of his face or the way his hair curled gently at the nape of his neck.

If he said yes, Pierre could close the gap, pressing his body against the whole sweet length of him. He could reach out, running a hand beneath the thin, warm cotton of his shirt, splaying his fingers over the sculpted muscles of his stomach and feeling them jump beneath his touch.

Maybe he'd take his time about it, smoothing his hand upwards over the ribs towards the pink points of his nipples, or maybe Dominique would give a throaty, impatient moan and his hand would slide down, down and he would lean forward, placing little nips and kisses at the vulnerable joint of his neck, feeling the breath quicken and the pulse beat beneath the pale skin.

Pierre wasn't sure what he'd do if he said no, cry perhaps, or take advantage of the dark to have a really stealthy wank.

Luckily he didn't have to find out; Dominique had moved the tie rack.

 

It must have been the most cramped, secretive sex in the history of mankind and it was _fantastic_. The sort of sex so good it gave you a complex and ever afterwards you were only able to come if your partner smelled of mothballs and old furs.

It made no sense. It should have been awful, pressed together in that stuffy little space, only ever an inch away from being poked in the eye with a coat hanger or barking his shins on a shoebox. When he reached out to stroke Dominique's hair back from his face he knocked over a tower of hats with his elbow and they kept making sad little crunching sounds as the brims gave way beneath their shifting bodies.

There wasn't room to do half the things Pierre wanted to do but that still left the other half and even those would have kept them busy for much longer than they had. There were other things too and Pierre surprised himself, because whenever he'd imagined this happening – well, not precisely this admittedly, because _why –_ he'd pictured, well, all the regular things. Pushing a knee between his parted legs. Pinning him against the wall and kissing him. He still wanted to do those things. His blood ran hot at the thought of them but – such was the strange nature of their friendship – he'd done all of them before. Some of them he did twice a week at a scheduled time in the gym.

But there were other things, small things, the things that you never get to do to someone in friendship, not even in a friendship as close and easy as theirs and he'd kissed Dominique before, a dozen times, kissed him in fun, or in pretence, sometimes even as a punishment but he'd never run his fingers over the fullness of his lips and felt them part beneath his touch. Never tangled a hand in his curling brown hair and used the grip to hold him close, close enough to see the pupils dilate in his grey-green eyes. It was these things he found himself wanting to do first, the soft, gentle, _intimate_ things that he thought he'd never be allowed.

There was also – and he hadn't thought about this at all – the things that Dominique apparently wanted to do to _him_ . The last coherent thought Pierre had was that maybe it was for the best he didn't have room to take his trousers off.

 

When he woke up, it was to find Dominque plastered up against his side, breath puffing gently against his collarbone and fingers snagged loosely on the wool of his sweater. The light in the room had that reassuring blueish, pre-dawn quality that usually meant you could go back to sleep without worrying about being late for anything. What it meant this time in particular was that they'd apparently slept for over four hours instead of figuring out how to get out of the linen press.

Yet, he didn't want to move. Having secret sex whilst hiding inside someone else's furniture – said someone else only metres away, no less – had been one of the stupidest things he'd ever done. Falling asleep afterwards was even stupider. Soon, Dominique would wake up, or he'd have to wake him and who knew how he'd feel about the whole thing. Maybe he'd regret it, or feel betrayed - maybe he'd even be angry. Pierre had never seen Dominique truly angry and he didn't know exactly how he'd feel, seeing it for the first time and knowing it was directed at him but he wasn't in a rush to find out. So, given all that had come before it didn't seem particularly stupid to sit there and enjoy the moment.

The cold grey light illuminated the ruin that they'd wreaked on the interior of the linen press; top hats crumpled into shapelessness, a rainbow of scattered ties and the – _thank god_ – shedding mink stole curled limply in a corner with a bootprint in its back.

He was idly twisting a piece of Dominique's hair between his fingers in quiet appreciation when the owner of the hair in question shifted slightly, muttered something and opened his eyes. When someone who spends half their life in the gym goes rigid with surprise it shows all through them; the formerly pliant form in Pierre's arms had turned as unyielding as a block of wood.

Pierre quickly formed an argument – _I wasn't snuggling with you, you were snuggling with me, this is_ my _side of the linen press you realise –_ before he realised that Dominique's shock wasn't due to awakening in his friend's arms with his flies undone and four crescent bruises marking his shoulder blades.

The door of the linen press was open.

Pierre had rather hoped that the events of the night would hold their record of 'most idiotic thing I've ever done' for some time but apparently he'd already managed to top it by admiring the way the light flattered his lovers skin without realising that all that light inside what was supposed to be a sealed box might be significant. Also, one of his legs was hanging over the edge.

“Maybe one of us kicked it open when we were asleep?” Dominique hazarded. “Or while we were...um...” and Pierre felt satisfaction curl in his stomach at the quick smile Dominique sent his way and then a flicker of something else when he caught his lower lip between his teeth at the end.

“Well, while we...you lifted me up and pushed me against the door at one point. That might have done it.”

It was as good an explanation as any. For all Pierre cared a good fairy could have opened it. Maybe it had happened through the sheer power of metaphor. The important thing was that they could be out of there before the snoring somebody upstairs regained sensibility and had them arrested. Pierre didn't even want to think about what they'd be charged for.

Unfortunately, it seemed that not everybody in the linen press shared his sense of urgency. Dominique was taking advantage of the better light to do his job properly and was getting a better look at the lock which had caused all the trouble. He fingered the little piece of metal, frowning.

“The wood's splintered.” he said, thoughtfully. “That shouldn't have happened”

A bird twittered somewhere outside, the first herald of the coming dawn.

“I don't care. Can we please get out of the linen press?”

“It's pine, that's why. Victor's an idiot, there's no way this could be genuine-”

“Fine! Good. Stop sitting on my legs so we can get out of the _fake_ linen press”

Dominique trailed off at this outburst but provokingly made no move to get off Pierre's legs.

“...or we could just live in here forever, I suppose. It's small, but you're clever with space. I think we should put the master bedroom in a hatbox and any guests we have can sleep over there, by the shoes.”

A second bird started up in answer to the first and Dominique shifted uneasily, clearly torn between two impulses.

 _He wants to get out of here as much as I do,_ Pierre realised  _and yet, we've been sitting here for ten minutes while he talks about pine._ He decided to try a different tactic.

"Why are you refusing to come out of the linen press?"

He tried to be patient as Dominique picked a splinter from the mess of wood around the lock and made a show of critically examining it so he wouldn't have to meet Pierre's eyes.

“It _is_ a closet,” he said, at last, “I was wrong about it being a Dutch linen press and now leaving it feels uncomfortably symbolic.”

“Well, come out of it anyway,” and Pierre indicated the utter ruin around them “before he wakes up and we have to explain why there's spunk on his hats.”

 

They crept out under the lightening sky and Pierre gave a sigh of pure relief as Dominique shut the front door behind him. It had been the best night of his life and he hoped that nothing like it would ever happen again.

The dawn air was damp and a little chilly, so that their breath misted and the gooseflesh rose on Dominique's bare arms. Pierre, trying not to feel that he was doing something daring, took him by the hand and tugged him in the general direction of his car, which for reasons of secrecy he'd parked a few blocks away.

“Come on, let's get out of here and go...” he hesitated over the word home. Home for him and home for Dominique were very different places. “Literally anywhere in the world that isn't here.” he finished, lamely.

Dominique let himself be towed along but he was frowning slightly and Pierre loosened his grasp, thinking he wanted to pull away but all he did was brush at the stained remnants of his shirt (the cloth of which had torn as easily as Pierre had thought it might) and say “I want a shower more than I think I've ever wanted anything”

The inside of the car was unpleasantly cold and clammy and Pierre turned on the heat but left the engine idling. Once he started the car, he'd have to drive somewhere and he had no idea of where he was going. Of where Dominique wanted him to go.

If he had a preference, he wasn't saying anything about it. Pierre watched him, hoping for some sort of hint but he just settled back in the seat, closing his eyes in contentment as the warmth hit him, as if he had nowhere he wanted to be other than Pierre's car.

He looked exhausted. He also looked beautiful, which was just _typical_ of him, Pierre thought.

He gave him a minute to enjoy sitting on something that was upholstered for the first time in five hours, then prodded him sharply in the ribs.

“Hey. Talk to me.”

Dominique rubbed a lazy hand over the spot where Pierre had jabbed him and gave him a puzzled look.

“What about?”

“Tell me what you're thinking. What are you thinking, right now?”

That woke him up. He went unexpectedly red and looked down, one hand fiddling with a fragment of his tattered shirt but before Pierre even had time to wonder if this was a good or a bad sign, Dominique was meeting his eyes and grinning.

“I was thinking, if that's what we can do in a linen press, just imagine what we could do with an actual bed!”

Pierre had imagined it, at some length. He turned the key in the ignition.

 

Somewhere in their futures there loomed a Very Serious Conversation but between that conversation and now was a long, hot shower where the water would stream over the sleek muscles of Dominique's shoulders and part into twin streams around the tempting jut of his hips and Pierre could show him everything that could be done now they weren't stuck in that closet.

 


End file.
